The present invention relates to a luminescent device which is useful for applying to various types of electronic apparatuses, e.g., an electronic watch, an electronic pocket notebook, a personal computer, and the like; a watch and an electronic apparatus, which have such a luminescent device; and a method for manufacturing such a luminescent device.
An Electro Luminescence element (hereinafter, which may be called "EL luminescent member") is a plate-like luminescent member, from the whole surface of which luminescence are emitted by an applied voltage.
The EL luminescent member, recently, is used in various types of electronic apparatuses, e.g., a watch, an electronic pocket notebook and the like. Because the EL luminescent member does not generate heat and the amount of electric power consumed thereby is small, the EL luminescent member has been applied to such types of apparatuses widely.
An example of a conventional watch having an EL luminescent member will be explained briefly in the following.
In case of the conventional watch having the EL luminescent member, a mechanism for driving analog hands is provided in an inner space between a watch glass which is disposed in an upper part of a watch case and a back cover which is disposed in a lower part of the watch case, namely, in the inside of the watch case.
The analog hands mechanism comprises a shaft for hands which extends from the center of the analog hands mechanism upwardly. Hands comprising a minute hand and an hour hand are connected with the shaft for hands.
A dial and a plate-like EL luminescent member in a layered state are placed on the upper surface of the analog hands mechanism. The periphery of the dial and the plate-like EL luminescent member are pressed down by a pressing member, thereby the dial and EL luminescent member are fixed to the watch case.
The dial is made of a translucent film or a light-transmissive color film, on the upper surface of which marks such as time indices or the like are printed.
The EL luminescent member emits light from the entirety of the surface thereof by an electric power or a voltage, for luminescence, which is supplied from a power source provided on a circuit board which is incorporated in the analog hands mechanism. Thereby, the EL luminescent member illuminates the whole dial and the whole hands of the analog hands mechanism, which are provided at an upper position to the EL luminescent member.
Therefore, the present time can be read even at night or in the dark from the outside through the dial and the hands illuminated by the EL luminescent member.
According to the conventional structure as described above, because the dial and the like are illuminated by the EL luminescent member, the dial must be made of a material through which light from the EL luminescent member can be transmitted.
Therefore, a translucent film or a light-transmissive color film are generally used for the dial. As a result, the entirety of the dial becomes light by the luminescence from the EL luminescent member to enable reading the time indices and the hands.
Conventionally, because the dial has a film on the surface thereof, it can give no metallic feeling, and therefore there are the problems to be solved, of being uninteresting and no feeling of high quality.